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1
Those who undertake to write histories, do not, I perceive, take
that trouble on one and the same account, but for many reasons, and those
such as are very different one from another. For some of them apply themselves
to this part of learning to show their skill in composition, and that they
may therein acquire a reputation for speaking finely: others of them there
are, who write histories in order to gratify those that happen to be concerned
in them, and on that account have spared no pains, but rather gone beyond
their own abilities in the performance: but others there are, who, of necessity
and by force, are driven to write history, because they are concerned in
the facts, and so cannot excuse themselves from committing them to writing,
for the advantage of posterity; nay, there are not a few who are induced
to draw their historical facts out of darkness into light, and to produce
them for the benefit of the public, on account of the great importance
of the facts themselves with which they have been concerned. Now of these
several reasons for writing history, I must profess the two last were my
own reasons also; for since I was myself interested in that war which we
Jews had with the Romans, and knew myself its particular actions, and what
conclusion it had, I was forced to give the history of it, because I saw
that others perverted the truth of those actions in their writings.

[5]
Now I have undertaken the present work, as thinking it will appear
to all the Greeks 3
worthy of their study; for it will contain all our antiquities, and the
constitution of our government, as interpreted out of the Hebrew Scriptures.
And indeed I did formerly intend, when I wrote of the war, 4
to explain who the Jews originally were, - what fortunes they had been
subject to, - and by what legislature they had been instructed in piety,
and the exercise of other virtues, - what wars also they had made in remote
ages, till they were unwillingly engaged in this last with the Romans:
but because this work would take up a great compass, I separated it into
a set treatise by itself, with a beginning of its own, and its own conclusion;
but in process of time, as usually happens to such as undertake great things,
I grew weary and went on slowly, it being a large subject, and a difficult
thing to translate our history into a foreign, and to us unaccustomed language.
However, some persons there were who desired to know our history, and so
exhorted me to go on with it; and, above all the rest, Epaphroditus, 5
a man who is a lover of all kind of learning, but is principally delighted
with the knowledge of history, and this on account of his having been himself
concerned in great affairs, and many turns of fortune, and having shown
a wonderful rigor of an excellent nature, and an immovable virtuous resolution
in them all. I yielded to this man's persuasions, who always excites such
as have abilities in what is useful and acceptable, to join their endeavors
with his. I was also ashamed myself to permit any laziness of disposition
to have a greater influence upon me, than the delight of taking pains in
such studies as were very useful: I thereupon stirred up myself, and went
on with my work more cheerfully. Besides the foregoing motives, I had others
which I greatly reflected on; and these were, that our forefathers were
willing to communicate such things to others; and that some of the Greeks
took considerable pains to know the affairs of our nation.

[10]
I found, therefore, that the second of the Ptolemies was a king who
was extraordinarily diligent in what concerned learning, and the collection
of books; that he was also peculiarly ambitious to procure a translation
of our law, and of the constitution of our government therein contained,
into the Greek tongue. Now Eleazar the high priest, one not inferior to
any other of that dignity among us, did not envy the forenamed king the
participation of that advantage, which otherwise he would for certain have
denied him, but that he knew the custom of our nation was, to hinder nothing
of what we esteemed ourselves from being communicated to others. Accordingly,
I thought it became me both to imitate the generosity of our high priest,
and to suppose there might even now be many lovers of learning like the
king; for he did not obtain all our writings at that time; but those who
were sent to Alexandria as interpreters, gave him only the books of the
law, while there were a vast number of other matters in our sacred books.
They, indeed, contain in them the history of five thousand years; in which
time happened many strange accidents, many chances of war, and great actions
of the commanders, and mutations of the form of our government. Upon the
whole, a man that will peruse this history, may principally learn from
it, that all events succeed well, even to an incredible degree, and the
reward of felicity is proposed by God; but then it is to those that follow
his will, and do not venture to break his excellent laws: and that so far
as men any way apostatize from the accurate observation of them, what was
practical before becomes impracticable 6
and whatsoever they set about as a good thing, is converted into an incurable
calamity. And now I exhort all those that peruse these books, to apply
their minds to God; and to examine the mind of our legislator, whether
he hath not understood his nature in a manner worthy of him; and hath not
ever ascribed to him such operations as become his power, and hath not
preserved his writings from those indecent fables which others have framed,
although, by the great distance of time when he lived, he might have securely
forged such lies; for he lived two thousand years ago; at which vast distance
of ages the poets themselves have not been so hardy as to fix even the
generations of their gods, much less the actions of their men, or their
own laws. As I proceed, therefore, I shall accurately describe what is
contained in our records, in the order of time that belongs to them; for
I have already promised so to do throughout this undertaking; and this
without adding any thing to what is therein contained, or taking away any
thing therefrom.

[18]
But because almost all our constitution depends on the wisdom of
Moses, our legislator, I cannot avoid saying somewhat concerning him beforehand,
though I shall do it briefly; I mean, because otherwise those that read
my book may wonder how it comes to pass, that my discourse, which promises
an account of laws and historical facts, contains so much of philosophy.
The reader is therefore to know, that Moses deemed it exceeding necessary,
that he who would conduct his own life well, and give laws to others, in
the first place should consider the Divine nature; and, upon the contemplation
of God's operations, should thereby imitate the best of all patterns, so
far as it is possible for human nature to do, and to endeavor to follow
after it: neither could the legislator himself have a right mind without
such a contemplation; nor would any thing he should write tend to the promotion
of virtue in his readers; I mean, unless they be taught first of all, that
God is the Father and Lord of all things, and sees all things, and that
thence he bestows a happy life upon those that follow him; but plunges
such as do not walk in the paths of virtue into inevitable miseries. Now
when Moses was desirous to teach this lesson to his countrymen, he did
not begin the establishment of his laws after the same manner that other
legislators did; I mean, upon contracts and other rights between one man
and another, but by raising their minds upwards to regard God, and his
creation of the world; and by persuading them, that we men are the most
excellent of the creatures of God upon earth. Now when once he had brought
them to submit to religion, he easily persuaded them to submit in all other
things: for as to other legislators, they followed fables, and by their
discourses transferred the most reproachful of human vices unto the gods,
and afforded wicked men the most plausible excuses for their crimes; but
as for our legislator, when he had once demonstrated that God was possessed
of perfect virtue, he supposed that men also ought to strive after the
participation of it; and on those who did not so think, and so believe,
he inflicted the severest punishments. I exhort, therefore, my readers
to examine this whole undertaking in that view; for thereby it will appear
to them, that there is nothing therein disagreeable either to the majesty
of God, or to his love to mankind; for all things have here a reference
to the nature of the universe; while our legislator speaks some things
wisely, but enigmatically, and others under a decent allegory, but still
explains such things as required a direct explication plainly and expressly.
However, those that have a mind to know the reasons of every thing, may
find here a very curious philosophical theory, which I now indeed shall
wave the explication of; but if God afford me time for it, I will set about
writing it 7
after I have finished the present work. I shall now betake myself to the
history before me, after I have first mentioned what Moses says of the
creation of the world, which I find described in the sacred books after
the manner following.

4 We may seasonably note here, that Josephus wrote his Seven Books of the
Jewish War long before he wrote these his Antiquities. Those books of the
War were published about A.D. 75, and these Antiquities, A. D. 93, about
eighteen years later.

5 This Epaphroditus was certainly alive in the third year of Trajan, A.D.
100. See the note on the First Book Against Apion, sect. 1. Who he was
we do not know; for as to Epaphroditus, the freedman of Nero, and afterwards
Domitian's secretary, who was put to death by Domitian in the 14th or 15th
year of his reign, he could not be alive in the third of Trajan.

6 Josephus here plainly alludes to the famous Greek proverb, If God be with
us, every thing that is impossible becomes possible.

7 As to this intended work of Josephus concerning the reasons of many of
the Jewish laws, and what philosophical or allegorical sense they would
bear, the loss of which work is by some of the learned not much regretted,
I am inclinable, in part, to Fabricius's opinion, ap. Havercamp, p. 63,
61, That "we need not doubt but that, among some vain and frigid conjectures
derived from Jewish imaginations, Josephus would have taught us a greater
number of excellent and useful things, which perhaps nobody, neither among
the Jews, nor among the Christians, can now inform us of; so that I would
give a great deal to find it still extant."

Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.

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